BY ROBERT FALCONER

After three years now of shooting with the Nikon Z9 (along with its younger sibling the Z8 for the past year), I wanted to put some thoughts down about Nikon's flagship camera — the good, the not so good, and the things I hope to see improved in a Z9II. Spoiler alert: for the most part I've been extremely impressed.

It would be fair to say that a lot has been spoken about Nikon over the past several years, or perhaps it's more accurate to say, there's a lot that hasn't been spoken. The company lost significant public mindshare in the decade following 2013; a combination of some corporate missteps, a massive technological disruption (the smartphone), and significant competition from a well-known consumer electronics manufacturer that pushed the limits of full frame mirrorless technology.

The consequences of all of this were that Nikon—to the extent anyone was talking about them at all—endured significant criticisms for products that were late to market, too often missed the mark, or underwhelmed in certain key aspects when held up against competitors.

That's the bad news. The good news is that in late 2021 that tide began to turn. After finally delving headlong into full frame mirrorless in 2018 with the launch of the Z6 and Z7 series cameras (both highly capable performers that regrettably omitted some key functionalities), Nikon introduced the world's first fully-professional full frame mirrorless body, the Z9. And with a few quibbles—most of which have subsequently been addressed through a rigorous and regular firmware update strategy—this time the company didn't hold back one iota.

What has emerged is probably the most well-rounded pro mirrorless camera on the market in 2025, when all metrics are tallied together holistically (and that's the critical differentiator to which I'll return at the end). As photographers, however, I believe we are all the richer for Nikon's mirrorless renaissance, as is the photographic industry writ large.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF NIKON, AND WHY IT MATTERS

Nikon’s name is nearly synonymous with photography. For over a century, it has been a cornerstone in the evolution of imaging technology. Founded in 1917 as Nippon Kogaku K.K., the company began by manufacturing precision optical equipment such as microscopes and military optics, and in the years that followed WWII developed a reputation for high quality rangefinders and consumer lenses. Yet it wasn’t until the mid-20th century that Nikon emerged as a global force in photography — a reputation it still holds today.

Nikon’s true breakthrough came with the release of the 'F' SLR in 1959. This camera wasn't just a single product — it was the heart of a comprehensive system, an important distinguishing factor at the time. The Nikon F established the 35mm SLR as the go-to format for professionals and serious amateurs alike. Moreover, with rugged build quality, modular accessories, and a groundbreaking F-mount lens system (still used in updated form today), it became the camera of choice for photojournalists and conflict photographers, most notably during the Vietnam War era.

Throughout the '70s and '80s, Nikon continued to refine its SLR lineup and cement its reputation as the go-to professional 35mm SLR system. Models like the Nikon F2, F3, and FM/FE series combined mechanical reliability with emerging electronic automation. Nikon lenses, known for their sharpness and color rendition, became the gold standard of versatility and quality for professionals shooting 35mm. The brand's association with the National Geographic aesthetic—sharp, vivid, and timeless—helped cement its place in the cultural zeitgeist, with both professional photographers and celebrities alike extolling its merits.

In 1982, two years after the debut of the flagship F3, Nikon released an advertisement in US photo magazines (below left) with the simple tagline: "Nikon. The one company where dedication to making great professional cameras didn't happen overnight." It was an unambiguous statement of confidence about both its authoritative professional reputation and its place in photographic history. And, of course, a clear shot at Canon, who had been challenging Nikon during the 1970s with successes of their own.

By the late 1980s and through the 1990s Nikon continued to build on its professional reputation, despite the competition having caught up, and even surpassed them in certain metrics. Nevertheless, cameras like the F4 and F5 cemented Nikon's dominance throughout the professional community, touting, among other things, the company's dedication to building rugged, pro-quality cameras that focused on feature-sets designed to be useful as opposed to gimmicky. Bodies that could be relied upon no matter what you threw at them (as the below ad suggests).

As the digital revolution took hold in the early 2000s, Nikon adapted with the D1 series — among the first professional digital SLRs. Their D3 and later D850 DSLRs pushed boundaries in resolution, low-light performance, dynamic range, and autofocus accuracy. For years, Nikon and Canon remained locked in an arms race, constantly innovating for the attention of pros and enthusiasts.

Nikon's shift to mirrorless in 2018 posed a new challenge. While competitors like Sony gained early momentum, Nikon took a more deliberate, some might opine leisurely approach. The launch of the Z-Series, promoting a new, larger bayonet mount designed for superior performance and future scalability was a clear step forward in terms of flexibility in electronic connection, optical engineering and design (despite what some detractors say), though arguably arrived later than many industry pundits had hoped. Nevertheless, despite some early teething pains with the first Z6 and Z7, Nikon shortly began reasserting that it could innovate without abandoning the legacy its users loved.

The Z9 is the natural evolution of this approach — a culmination of cutting-edge mirrorless technology and decades of expertise in camera manufacturing. It masterfully blends digital innovation with Nikon’s revered optomechanical tradition, embodying a lineage shaped by over 60 years of photojournalism, nature, scientific, and commercial photography. From the peaks of Everest to the vacuum of space—where the Z9 plays an active role today in NASA’s latest missions—like all Nikon flagships that have come before it has already proven its reliability in the most extreme conditions.

That’s the heart of Nikon’s legacy and why it matters. In an ever-changing industry where trust and consistency are increasingly rare, Nikon stands out with a deep-rooted understanding of photography as both craft and profession. Backed by over a century of expertise in precision optics and imaging, Nikon cameras have earned their place in the hands of storytellers and image-makers who have documented some of the most significant and arresting moments in history over the past 65 years.

DEFINING THE PROFESSIONAL MIRRORLESS FLAGSHIP

Nikon's transition to mirrorless, most especially with the Z9, shows the brand’s ability to adapt without losing its aforementioned, hard-won core identity. Photographers get advanced tools like AI-powered autofocus and 8K video, but still enjoy the familiar design consistency, tactile control, rugged build, and intuitive ergonomics that remain hallmarks of the Nikon brand. Furthermore, Nikon’s long-term support for systems like the F-Mount should reassure photographers that their investment in Z-Series bodies, lenses and accessories will similarly continue for decades to come.

As a professional photographer thus accustomed to the reliability and performance of Nikon's pro DSLR bodies (and its SLR bodies in the preceding decades), I was excited—though admittedly also cautiously optimistic—about the announcement of the Z9. What follows are some of the camera's most noteworthy capabilities, along with some of my own personal impressions in shooting with it. I won't get into every spec, customization option and feature set that the Z9 offers (e.g. Skin softening, Portrait impression balance, Auto capture, etc.) — suffice to say that this camera is dense with capabilities that will benefit both dedicated amateurs and professionals alike, and each user will want to explore those and customize the camera for their own individual shooting needs. Most of my evaluation is coming from the perspective of a commercial motion picture and television photographer.

WEATHER SEALING

Z9 shooting performance aside—we'll come to that in a moment—initial exposure to the early Z6 had demonstrated to me that Nikon robustness, at least, had critically made the leap into their inaugural mirrorless offerings. A stint under a water tower on set for several hours one night proved that in spades. For two hours I soaked that Z6 body so thoroughly that if you'd squeezed the rubber grip, water would have emerged (my hands suffered a similar fate they were so thoroughly water-logged). Note: I don't recommend doing that, nor would I ever suggest exposing any precision instrument to undue stress or abuse if it can possibly be avoided. However, at the time I did not have a rain sleeve in my bag and we were moving rapidly through setups. Bottom line: the camera kept going without missing a beat, and no water damage was incurred.

So I had high expectations for the Z9. But as every photographer worth their salt knows, specs and marketing mean nothing until one has the camera in hand and the opportunity to put it through its paces in one's own personal shooting circumstances. While Nikon doesn't provide an IP rating, per se, they do emphasize that the body is extensively weather-sealed.

There's no point burying the lede here, so I won't. The Z9 has more than met my expectations, proving to be even more robust than the Z6 when it comes to my own experience subjecting it to heavy rain, dust and even smokey conditions. The camera seems to shrug off most elements to which I've exposed it thus far. Moreover, the body seems to be reasonably shock-resistant, too.

BUILT TO TAKE A KNOCK...OR TWO

One morning while at work, the Z9 body accidentally escaped my grip as I was awkwardly and hurriedly extracting it from my camera bag. I watched in seeming slow motion as it dropped onto a pebbly beach and bounced two or three times before finally coming to rest just short of the water line. Upon careful inspection and an operational check, I was able to deduce that short of a minor scuff on the bottom, it had incurred no damage (my wits were a different story). Fortunately, there was no lens attached—possibly my saving grace—and the body cap was in place. Nevertheless, it was about as much abuse as most photographers are likely to expose a body to, accidental or otherwise.

It continues to work perfectly to this day.

Mishaps can and do happen, especially if you're working quickly, and every situation is, of course, different, but from my experience with Nikon over the years—now to include the Z9—I remain staunchly persuaded that their flagship bodies are built to take a tumble now and again and keep one in the game, shooting, without failure. By and large, the Z9 feels like a direct descendant of Nikon’s rugged venerable pro SLRs and DSLRs in this regard, just reimagined for the mirrorless age. 

PRO-SIZED, BUT FOR GOOD REASON

It's important to point out here that the Z9 is a big body, no question—not for the casual shooter, to be sure—but still about 20% smaller and lighter than a D6. By swapping the mirror box for an IBIS mechanism, the engineers have managed to add meaningful new functionality while still shedding some weight, and crucially, mechanical complexity (a potential failure point in any camera).

Dual shutter releases and primary controls are de rigueur on a larger pro body like this, and I do, indeed, find they make vertical shooting easier, particularly for portrait and gallery work, while also giving the body enough custom buttons to keep every function I need at my fingertips, regardless of whether I'm shooting in landscape or portrait orientation. 

And for you video shooters out there, of which I am admittedly not one (I won't be covering that for the purposes of this review), this camera's lengthy 8K video recording times are directly attributable to the increased thermal dissipation that a one-piece, integrated vertical grip body provides.

The full-sized body also enables the Z9 to feature matching dual card slots compatible with both XQD and CFexpress Type B cards, and offers full support for Nikon’s traditional dual-slot functions. CFexpress Type B cards are larger, and more importantly much faster than the CFexpress Type A cards used by some other manufacturers.

So as one can see, there is a requisite engineering necessity here that the camera body be larger to simultaneously accommodate all these various capabilities.

With the Z9's build quality and structural bonafides out of the way, what about the camera's technical shooting capabilities?

NIKON Z9 NOMENCLATURE AT A GLANCE:

• 45.7MP Stacked CMOS Sensor – High-res, fast readout
• EXPEED 7 Processor – Powerful, advanced processing
• 8K60 & 4K120 Video – Pro-grade internal recording
• 20fps RAW / 120fps JPEG Burst – Extreme speed
• No Mechanical Shutter – Fully electronic, blackout-free
• Advanced AF System – 493 points, Deep Learning AF
• Real-Time Subject Tracking – People, animals, vehicles
• Dual CFexpress Type B Slots – Fast, pro media
• 5-Axis In-Body VR – Up to 6 stops stabilization
• Rugged Pro Body – Integrated grip, weather-sealed
• High-Res EVF & Tilting Touch LCD – Clear, flexible viewing
• Full Pro Connectivity – Ethernet, Wi-Fi, GPS, USB-C

BUH-BYE MECHANICAL SHUTTER

Perhaps the Z9's most discussed signature feature (at least from a marketing perspective) was Nikon's decision to eschew the mechanical shutter altogether (the first consumer full frame stills camera in history to do so). It was a bold move, but after 36 months I'm prepared to acknowledge that Nikon pulled it off with surprising finesse. The electronic shutter is fast—we’re talking 1/32,000 sec fast—and silent, with a blistering sensor readout speed of 3.7 milliseconds.

What this means in practice is that the camera's default is to shoot silently (something set photographers have dreamed of for decades). If you want sound, you'll have to dial it in artificially, and the camera offers several options for this. Visual conformation that you have captured an image is achieved in several ways, including by switching on an imitation blackout (more like a brief frame dimming), or via two different frame edge lines in the viewfinder that blink when an image is captured. These features can be customized in various ways.

All of this is achieved via a continual, uninterrupted cycle of data coming off the image sensor. Two 120Hz data pipelines connect the image sensor to the EXPEED 7 chip — this dual-channel setup enables both the camera’s maximum 120 fps frame rate and its high-speed focus data stream. One pipeline feeds into the standard image processing system, while the other is dedicated to a newly designed chain for viewfinder and focus processing.  Bottom line: no blackout, no lag, just pure responsiveness. Rolling shutter, while not 100% eliminated, has been reduced so far near as makes no difference in 98% of shooting scenarios. Fast action photography almost feels like cheating compared to a conventional DSLR...yes, including Nikon's own recent flagship DSLRs. Which brings us to...

AUTOFOCUS THAT (SORT OF) THINKS FOR YOU

Most of my AF analysis here is based upon Nikon's later firmware updates, including 5.0 and 5.1. It's important to recognize that the Z9's AF performance has improved dramatically since the camera first debuted in 2021. While it was a huge step above the Z6II and Z7II upon first launch, having done some personal comparisons it still lagged behind Sony (and the latest Canon models) in some key respects. I'm happy to report that the subsequent firmware updates have closed that gap so significantly that I think we now find ourselves in a horse race. AF performance should no longer be anyone's deciding factor in choosing a system.

With 493 phase-detection points and deep learning-based subject detection, by-and-large the Z9 confidently locks onto people, animals, and even vehicles with uncanny accuracy compared to anything else I've owned and worked with for any length of time. The autofocus system typically receives input at a rate of 120 frames per second. Given that still photos can be captured at a maximum rate of 20 frames per second and the camera processes six separate focus readings for each image taken, this frequent stream of focus data significantly enhances the camera's ability to accurately track subjects in motion. Continuous shooting speeds are all available with AF and AE tracking, as you would expect.

While I haven't tracked birds in flight, sports players sprinting across fields, or cars tearing down racetracks, I have photographed people in a variety of types of action and under varying lighting conditions on very kinetic film sets. In the majority of instances, the Z9 remained glued to the subject. What surprised me most was the camera’s ability to recognize people's eyes from impressive distances, something where it actually beats the competition (at least the last time I tested this).

Now, with all of that being said, here comes the important caveat: the Z9's AF system works best when the user takes the time to understand how the various modes work and how to set them up correctly. It's remarkably intuitive when you do this, but it cannot think for you and still requires the operator to make critical decisions.

When multiple people are in the frame, for example, the Nikon Z9's subject detection tends to prioritize one person, marking others faintly. You can switch focus using the focus joystick, but in fast-paced environments like sports or events, this manual input introduces lag and can cause you to miss critical moments.

To improve reliability, narrowing the autofocus area is essential. Options like Wide-area AF (small or large) and the customizable Wide-area AF (C1/C2) help refine what the camera "sees." However, many users misunderstand these modes; the detection can occur outside the visible box. If a subject’s eye is within view but outside the box, detection can still lock on, which may confuse users expecting stricter confinement. Wider AF areas risk catching parts of multiple subjects, leading to misfocus. Narrowing the detection zone helps but requires you to actively track the subject by moving the box or camera—eliminating "point-and-shoot" style simplicity.

The return of 3D-tracking on the Z9, especially combined with subject, color, and pattern detection, significantly enhances tracking accuracy during fast or erratic motion. As mentioned earlier, it’s often impressively reliable—until something like clothing color changes, or lighting shifts throw it off. Similarly, with poorly recognized subjects, tracking may jump to an unintended area or to the background. The latest firmware updates have improved all of these issues quite significantly, but on occasion, inconsistencies can still crop up. 

In short, while the Z9’s tracking system is powerful and mostly accurate, it still demands user awareness and sometimes manual intervention to prevent mis-focus in complex scenes. Setting up custom function buttons that allow one to quickly switch between modes during highly changeable, kinetic situations can go a long way to improving the user experience and leveraging the Z9's sophisticated AF capabilities.

I should note here that the Z9 breathes new life into recent F-Mount lenses, offering better overall performance than even the D6 could manage thanks to sophisticated subject detection and face tracking, coupled with more powerful processing. If you own some of the more exotic F-Mount lenses of the past ten years, particularly tele lenses and E-Type or G-Type variants, you'll discover a noticeable benefit here and may want to hold onto that glass until such time as Z-Mount lenses arrive to replace them.

BEAUTIFUL IMAGE QUALITY

Granted, this is largely a known commodity when it comes to Nikon sensors, but specifically one can expect very similar image quality to the excellent Z7 and Z7II.

I primarily shoot on film sets, so dynamic range and ISO performance are at the top of my list. The Z9’s 45.7MP stacked CMOS sensor is generally outstanding. Paired with the new EXPEED 7 processor, the detail and tonal range the camera delivers are beautiful. Shadows hold up when lifted in post, highlights roll off naturally, and even at higher ISOs noise is well-controlled without losing texture. File maleability is ample for my needs.

At ISO 64, one can get over 11 stops of usable dynamic range; ISO 500 delivers close to 9 stops and ISO 1600 offers roughly 8. When necessary, I’m not shy about using ISO 3200, 6400, or even pushing up as high as ISO 15000 if absolutely necessary. The Z9 seems to experience less color shift than previous Nikon high megapixel bodies, which is a definite benefit in these situations. The trick when pushing the gain above ISO 6400 is to ensure proper exposure, decent quality directional light, and to be certain you've nailed focus. Assuming all of that, with a bit of careful post-processing (Adobe's new AI Noise Reduction is amazing), ISO 15000 can look as if it were shot at ISO 2000. Just be careful with high-contrast situations where your dynamic range is dramatically reduced at high ISO values.

Nikon’s in-camera JPEG rendering, meanwhile, continues to impress — consistently top-notch, just as it has been since the early DSLR era. Although with the Z9 I doubt too many photographers are going to deliver SOOC jpegs.  (I still have to give the ultimate win to Fujifilm in this category, however — the X-Series cameras have the best SOOC jpegs of any of the Japanese manufacturers, in my experience.)

THE BENEFIT OF 'HIGH EFFICIENCY' NEF FILES

Ingestion, file management and storage of 45.7 megapixel RAW files can quickly become a bit of a bear when using a camera capable of shooting at 20fps. Thankfully, Nikon has cleverly solved this issue with two new functionalities, High Efficiency* RAW and High Efficiency RAW, both of which are new compression algorithms unique in the industry as of this writing.

High Efficiency RAW files in the Nikon Z9 use a lossy compression algorithm to reduce file size while preserving nearly all image quality. There are two options: High Efficiency* (smaller, more compressed) and High Efficiency (slightly larger, better quality). These formats maintain 14-bit data, ensuring high dynamic range and color fidelity. The compression is optimized to discard visually insignificant data, significantly reducing storage requirements—up to 50–70% smaller than uncompressed RAW—without noticeable quality loss.

These impressive new capabilities come courtesy of TicoRAW, a proprietary format developed by the third-party company intoPIX. Nikon's EXPEED 7 processor includes dedicated hardware to handle this compression method, and it does so with remarkable speed. So much so, in fact, that memory card buffers that previously capped out around 80 frames can now stretch to over 1000 frames; no small achievement.

Thus far, the only noticeable trade-off with High Efficiency* seems to be a slight increase in noise within dense shadow areas, easily fixable in software such as the aforementioned Adobe Camera Raw (or Lightroom). Otherwise, there's no discernible difference in image quality. If your RAW processing software supports the format (most do now), you're gaining a massive buffer boost and smaller file sizes with virtually no downside. The advantages here are clear: reduced storage demands, dramatically extended buffer capacity, and negligible, if any, impact on image quality. I've grown confident enough in it that I use it for almost all my shooting situations.

BATTERY LIFE

According to Nikon, the Z9's large capacity EN-EL18d battery provides about 700 shots per charge, depending upon whether the viewfinder (EVF) or monitor is used and whether energy-saving settings are enabled. Personally, I find I'm getting about 1000 shots per charge, sometimes more, depending on how much I chimp, shoot off the LCD, or use burst modes. With 20fps in RAW, 30fps in jpeg, or even 120 fps at 11 megapixels (if you don't mind sacrificing resolution for speed), this is a respectable performance for a camera with these capabilities.

Granted, this is a far cry from the 3,580 shots per charge Nikon listed for the D6 DSLR—with many photographers in the field achieving 8,000-10,000 shots per charge (depending on settings and shooting style)—but with EVFs and IBIS comes a greater power drain. Such is the reality of mirrorless.

THE ULTIMATE "ALL-ROUNDER" PROFESSIONAL BODY

I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post that the Z9 is probably the most well-rounded pro mirrorless camera on the market in 2025, when all metrics are tallied together holistically. So what do I that mean by that, exactly?

I don't intend this review to be "this brand vs that brand," but I think it's important to identify Nikon's core strategy here, which necessitates looking across town at the primary competition to illusrate my point (once again, I'm restricting these comparisons to stills capabilities only, as I rarely, if ever, shoot video on my cameras).

Let's begin with Sony. The flagship A1 Mark II offers a slightly higher resolution stacked sensor—50.5 megapixels—and shoots up to 30fps in RAW, vs the Z9's 45.7 megapixel stacked sensor and 20fps max shooting rate in RAW. These are reasonably close core performance metrics. And while the A1 Mark II offers a higher resolution EVF, the Z9 still provides a slightly faster sensor readout speed (3.7ms vs 4.0ms). Moreover, the A1 Mark II does not offer a pro body with an integrated vertical grip or illuminated buttons (as one example) and is currently priced at $6,498 USD. The Z9, meanwhile, can presently be had new for $4,997. So the value proposition clearly goes to the Z9. I should probably note here that Sony does not offer a pro-grade body with integrated vertical grip anywhere in their current ecosystem. Sony users might argue that's a feature, not a bug, but the integrated vertical grip design is an intentional, decades-long strategic choice from Nikon (and Canon) stretching back almost 30 years, and with input from working pros; your own needs, of course, may vary (which is why Nikon also offers the Z8, btw).

It's a similar situation when comparing the Z9 to Canon's latest flagship, the EOS-R1. While the R1 definitely offers a notably faster sensor readout speed (2.8ms vs 3.7ms), faster 40fps RAW burst rate (vs the Z9's 20fps RAW burst rate), a higher resolution EVF, Eye Control AF (more a gimmick than a feature, IMHO) and better battery life, it's also only a 24 megapixel stacked sensor...and is priced, as new, at $6299.00.

Naturally, all of these things come down to what one is looking for in a camera system, but it's hard to ignore that the Z9 is presently the only manufacturer striking a balance of high resolution + high speed performance + a professional-caliber body, and doing so at an incredibly attractive price. Add Nikon's demonstrable commitment to upgrading or adding feature sets via free firmware updates—something Sony and Canon have largely eschewed—and it's easy to see what makes the Z9 such an attractive proposition as a long-term investment. (I realize that the Z9 will be nearing the end of its life soon, and that things like firmware updates may begin to taper off a bit as we get closer to a Z9 II release, nevertheless for the purposes of explaining Nikon's holistic strategy, it seems worth mentioning.)

Then there are the Z-Series lenses. That's the subject of an entire blog post in and of itself, but the chief takeaway is that Nikon’s Z-Series lenses offer outstanding optical performance thanks to the new, larger Z mount, which has a 55mm diameter and a short 16mm flange distance. This design allows more light to reach the sensor edges, giving engineers greater flexibility in lens design and construction, resulting in sharper images with less distortion and better low-light performance. In concert with advanced optical designs—including aspherical and ED glass elements, state-of-the-art coatings to reduce flare and ghosting, and fast, quiet autofocus motors—what this all means are optics with exceptional sharpness, edge-to-edge clarity and beautiful bokeh.

WHAT CAN BE IMPROVED - LOOKING FORWARD TO A Z9II

Photographers are likely to have different suggestions about what they would like to see improved in a Nikon Z9II, depending upon their shooting requirements, including any given random esoteric functionality. Personally, below are improvements I hope to see on a Z9II that, on balance, I think most photographers would value.

• The first improvement takes us back to autofocus. While the overall AF performance of the Z9 is excellent—particularly now after several firmware augmentations—the latest flagship models from both Sony and Canon are making use of dedicated "AI" chips to further refine and delineate subjects for more intuitive and precise AF control and even greater stickiness during subject detection and follow. I would assume Nikon will do something similar with a Z9II, either with a chip dedicated to AF, or an even more powerful Expeed 8 processor. This is one of those technologies where I fully expect all three major manufacturers, Canon, Sony and Nikon, will achieve near complete parity with one another in another year or so. Of course, photographers will take every iterative advancement they can get that makes it easier to focus on subjects that are difficult to capture, so all improvements in this regard are welcome.

• I was happy to see that Nikon added pre-capture functionality to the Z9 via firmware. The pre-capture function buffers images when the shutter is half-pressed, saving moments up to one second before it’s fully pressed. When timing is critical, it's ideal for important moments and/or fast action, as it ensures they're not missed due to reaction delays. The feature works in specific high-speed shooting modes like High-Speed Frame Capture+. Nevertheless, there's a downside here, and it's a big one: It only works in jpg mode. There is no capacity to use pre-capture in RAW. In my opinion this is a huge detriment and something I hope Nikon addresses in the Z9II, since it doesn't appear to be something they can add to the Z9 through a firmware update.

• While I generally find the 3.69M dot EVF sufficient resolution, particularly given the Z9's fast refresh rate and—and this is crucial—high nit brightness and outstanding viewfinder optics, I wouldnt mind the Z9II adoping the Z6III's 5.76M dot EVF. That is, provided that the resolution doesn't drop during burst mode, a caveat that has afflicted some other brands with high-res EVFs, and which they typically bury in the fine print.

• Ideally, an improved Z9II body design would add the 4-axis multi-angle rear screen that combines both tilting and flipping capabilities, similar to what Sony now offers on both the A9III and A1II. This was an excellent addition by Sony, as it offers the best of both worlds, allowing the option of discreet low angle shooting from the rear screen when desired, but also the ability to flip the screen around if one is filming themselves during video production, for example.

• Canon introduced an extremely useful feature on the EOS-R3, high-frequency anti-flicker shooting. Essentially, the camera can detect light sources from 50.0 to 2011.2 Hz and adjust the shutter speed accordingly...and most importantly, automatically. Firmware version 3.00 on the Z9 introduced the option to select non-standard shutter speeds, making it possible to sync the camera more precisely with the flicker rate of lights or the refresh timing of screens. Annoyingly, however, it still involves trial and error to find the precise shutter speed you require, which can take valuable time when working quickly. Hopefully, with the Z9II Nikon will follow Canon’s lead here by implementing an automatic frequency matching feature.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Minor quibbles aside, by and large, the Nikon Z9 is not merely a technical triumph—it is a statement of continuity, evolution, and intent. With it, Nikon signals that the soul of its professional line has not been diluted in its mirrorless migration, but rather distilled. This is a camera forged not only from magnesium alloy and silicon, but from a lineage steeped in decades of professional feedback and dedication. It is robust in body—weather-sealed, shock-tolerant, unapologetically substantial—yet nuanced in function, offering blackout-free shooting, subject-aware autofocus, and efficient RAW file formats that will streamline any photographer's workflow.

For those who demand a tool as fluent as their instincts, this camera remains precise, even during chaotic shooting situations: rain, sleet, mud, smoke, kinetic motion — all absorbed without complaint. The electronic shutter is fast, silent, and reliable, and the autofocus system—now significantly improved through firmware—confidently tracks subjects with impressive accuracy. However, it still requires some user understanding to get the most out of its advanced capabilities. 

Image quality—dynamic range, resolution, and tonal registration—remain unmistakably Nikon, which is to say, excellent.

In short, the Z9 stands out as one of the most complete and capable mirrorless cameras available today, and in the opinion of this photographer, an excellent long-term investment for professionals, even in 2025.